The state of the liver in patients with polycythemia vera
Kotsiubinskiĭ, N.N.; Filev, L.V.
Klinicheskaia Meditsina 66(4): 82-86
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0023-2149 PMID: 3398460 Document Number: 311921
The pigment, lipid, protein-synthesis, antitoxic, anticoagulative and carbohydrate liver function, enzyme activity of GOT, GPT, acid phosphatase, lactate dehydrogenase, isoenzymes, as well as the parameters of analytic protein centrifugation (in 30 patients) and radioisotopic hepatography (in 110 patients) were studied in 316 polycythemia vera patients with consideration of the disease stage. Hepatomegaly was diagnosed in 83 per cent of the patients. The incidence of this symptom was increased as the disease stage was aggravated. Latent, asymptomatic partial liver insufficiency was not an infrequent finding. Moderate bilirubinemia (12.6 per cent), hypocholesterolemia and decrease in the general lipid content (17.5 per cent), glucose tolerance disorders, (21.1 per cent), hypoproteinemia (5.6 per cent), hypoalbuminemia (8.4 per cent), macroglobulinemia, moderate hyperenzymemia and impairment of secretory and absorptive function, as judged by the hepatography data (46.1 per cent), have been revealed. These changes depended on the disease stage. The genesis of these changes and the need of their consideration in the combined treatment of polycythemia vera are discussed.